Sep. 15, 2013

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This is the 'S' in a graffiti-style 'Grove Haus' painted on a concrete barrier in the parking lot of the home of Mark Ortwein and Carrie Bone, a former church, at the corner of Hosbrook and Grove streets in Fountain Square. Photographed on Friday, Sept. 13, 2013. / Charlie Nye / The Star

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From the sidewalk, the old Olivet Baptist Church looks no different than dozens of other old churches that dot urban neighborhoods in Indianapolis. It’s brick. It’s massive. It looks like it could withstand a hurricane — if we had such things in the Midwest.

Until recently, it also was abandoned.

The roof was slowly caving in. Water was pooling in odd places. And the grass stretched a little too high into the sky. In short, the church was becoming an eyesore to the residents of North Square, a tiny, but proud neighborhood just off the Cultural Trail in Fountain Square.

Then Carrie Bone and Mark Ortwein came along.

They’re not real estate developers, construction workers or even business people. Carrie is a nurse practitioner and Mark plays bassoon in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. But in only a few months, fueled by their own money, stubbornness and vision, they’ve turned the old church into space that even McMansion-loving suburbanites would envy. There’s a stage where Mark can play music, a basement the size of a gym, high ceilings and stained-glass windows that let in incredible light, and a master bedroom in the choir loft that overlooks the former sanctuary.

It’s their home, their business and a hangout for the community. They call it Grove Haus.

“It makes it a unique situation in that we live here,” Carrie said, sitting on a couch on a living-room-like landing they call the Red Room. “This is our house. And we have this awesome room that we want to share with our community.”

Carrie and Mark are the kind of brazen urban pioneers that Indianapolis needs to encourage in the worst way. The city has thousands of abandoned properties, many of them non-traditional structures falling apart the way Grove Haus was. There are people like Carrie and Mark out there, people willing to put sweat equity into a project. The problem is the system we have set up — from zoning rules, to outdated laws restricting purchases of abandoned properties, to the lending policies at banks — discourages this kind of initiative just when the city needs it most.

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This is one reason why what Carrie and Mark have managed to pull off is so impressive.

Grove Haus is an experiment. An experiment that started on a whim.

It was back in late 2011. The couple had recently started dating and Carrie was living in a small home in nearby Fletcher Place. Because of Carrie’s two children, Mark encouraged her to think about buying a bigger home.

“We were talking about how we always wanted to live in a warehouse or a church,” Carrie explained. “I watch a lot of HGTV,” Mark added.

The conversation continued as they walked to breakfast along Virginia Avenue. As they crossed Grove Avenue, Carrie looked to her left. “I’d lived here for 10 years at that point. I look left and this church has a for sale sign,” she said. “I go, ‘there’s our church,’ like just joking.”

It wasn’t long before she became “obsessed” with the place, though.

Mark, too.

“My mom walked through the place,” he recalled. “She said: `Are you crazy?’ I was like, ‘no.’ We could see what it could be. For me, as a musician, there were so many opportunities for recording or just doing concerts.”

"Indoor basketball for me," Carrie joked.

The original plan was to buy the place and just live there — Mark, Carrie and her two children. No business. But you know what they say about best-laid plans.

First, the church unexpectedly went to auction. The couple decided to make a bid but soon discovered that several Fountain Square business owners had interest in the property, too. That interest waned when everyone learned that only the church was for sale — not the parking lot next to it or the two lots behind it. Once the other prospective buyers backed out, Carrie and Mark were able to make a successful bid. They bought the adjacent properties later.

It took some time to close the deal, though. Because then came problems with the bank. The couple tried to take out a home loan because they planned to make it a residence, but Carrie said “the banks couldn’t wrap their heads around it.” (This apparently is a little different than a developer turning an old church into apartments or condos.)

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“Nobody knows what to do with a church if it’s not going to be a church. You can’t appraise it like a house,” she said. “So, I was like, all right, we’re starting a business.”

The idea for Grove Haus was born.

Throughout the ups and downs and uncertainties, Carrie and Mark have spent long hours rehabbing the building. They moved in a month ago, which is why they still don’t have a working shower. But they have discovered interesting things such as a baptismal tank under the stage. Gross bathrooms painted Pepto-Bismol pink. And a refrigerator in the basement left full of food, without electricity, for two years.

“There was liquid dripping from the fridge,” Mark said. “They just left everything sitting there."

"When you hit the door,” Carrie said, “it was like, 'What in the world?'"

Grove Haus as the couple’s home is well under way. Grove Haus as a business is another matter.

They eventually want to host concerts, weddings and yoga classes. So far, they’ve let Naptown Stomp, a swing dance group, host an event there. I happened to walk up that night and Carrie and Mark were nice enough to let me get a glimpse of the swing dancers from the choir loft. Grove Haus also has hosted an Eclectic Market in the parking lot. The next one is set for Oct. 12 and will feature local artisans and a few food trucks.

What Grove Haus will become is a work in progress. It is the couple’s residence and Carrie’s children have a 9 p.m. bedtime. So all events must end before then — at least during the week. A permanent liquor license is off the table, too. Certain things you don’t want going on in your house, no matter how community-oriented it might be.

“It’s a learning process,” Carrie said. “We’re definitely working out all of the glitches. We have no idea what we’re doing.”